Don’t you just hate it when your dog barks non-stop while you’re gone? Separation anxiety in dogs is often the reason dogs chew up furniture and clothing, and even claw doors and windows when they’re alone. By using dog separation anxiety training, you can often solve this problem.
You have two goals with this training. The first is to make your dog less dependent on you, and the second is to teach him that being by himself isn’t a bad thing.
Basics Of Dog Separation Anxiety Training
It’s important that your dog know his place in the family pecking order. The dog should be at the bottom of the family heap, not the top. Even if your dog sees you as the pack leader, it’s important that he doesn’t rank himself socially above the other members of the family. Everyone in your home should be involved in dog training so that your dog understands that he needs to obey everyone in the house, not just you.
Your dog shouldn’t get too attached to you. We’ve all seen the 90-pound dogs who always want to curl up in someone’s lap. It’s funny at first, but it gets old fast. It’s best to train your dog to sit or stay about three feet from you. He needs to learn that he doesn’t have to be in constant contact with you to be happy.
Don’t let your dog sleep in the bed with you. If he’s already doing this, first train him to sleep at the foot of your bed. Then encourage him to sleep in his own doggie bed, with the eventual goal of moving his bed out of your bedroom. This teaches him to become more independent of you.
Make sure your dog gets lots of exercise to burn up the extra energy he has. A long walk in the morning and again in the evening goes a long way toward keeping your dog on an even keel emotionally.
This sounds harsh, but don’t make a big scene when you come home. Encouraging your dog to jump around, barking in excitement when you return, is only reinforcing the idea that he can’t be happy unless you’re there. It’s best to ignore your dog for twenty minutes or so before you leave, and again when you return.
Teaching Dogs With Separation Anxiety To Be Happy When They’re Alone
Work on teaching your dog the basic “sit,”, “relax,” and “stay” commands. He needs to know these basic commands so you can work on these steps.
Find a reason to leave the room if you’re watching tv. Use the “sit-stay” command, and then leave. At first come right back, and reward your dog with a tasty treat if he stayed and didn’t follow you. Gradually increase the time that you’re gone. Do this many times a day, so that your dog learns that when you leave, you do come back. He also learns that if he sits and waits patiently for you, he gets rewarded.
You’ll also want to find a room in your house where your dog can’t destroy anything. Put your dog in there with a few favorite toys that he only gets when he’s by himself. Stay with him a little while, and then leave without any fuss, and close the door behind you. Come back before he gets upset, and reward him with a food treat. Repeat this as often during the day as you can, gradually increasing the amount of time you’re gone. Be sure to put his toys up when you’re done.
What your dog is learning now is that he gets fun toys when you’re gone, and a treat when you return. This is teaching him that being away from you isn’t so bad after all.
Your next step? To take what you’ve just learned and apply it. You’ll want to look for a good dog training course, so you can avoid making mistakes as you use dog separation anxiety training to solve your dog behavior problems.
Darlene Norris
http://www.articlesbase.com/pets-articles/how-to-use-dog-separation-anxiety-training-to-help-dogs-with-separation-anxiety-740728.html
#1 by Sid Singer on March 14, 2010 - 3:59 am
Need help with this dog (separation anxiety/barking at strangers/potty issues),or I'll need to get rid of her?
===A Little Background history of the dog===
Miniature Pinscher chihuahua; 2 Years old. female
First owner: Isolated this dog from any other human or dog contact except for the owner. Never left alone. Also the only potty training she have had was puppy pads for 2 years. Lived in a condo.
Second Owner: Got the dog after the she moved to another apartment, but found out she couldn’t keep dogs at her new place and gave it to owner number two. Owner number two already has a dog, and a strict owner who knows how to train dogs. However, Owner Two moved into their new place and was told you can’t keep more than one dog. Total time with Owner Two was 1-2 months.
Owner Number 3: (ME) My wife brought this dog home, and at first I didn’t want to get a dog until I had a house with a small yard for a dog. Owner Number 2 is my wife’s boss, and she was real sad about having to get rid of the dog. So that’s 3 owners in 3 months for this little dog. We decided to try out the dog for a week to see how she is, and she is awesome! Very affectionate and quiet. Since I work from home. I take care of the dog. Great little buddy around the house while I’m working.
===The Problems===
The problem is when me and my wife tried to leave the apartment, we put her back in her doggy kennel. We stepped out the door to do the laundry and we heard her barking and howling. About 45 seconds after closing the door. We came back 20 minutes later after the laundry and she was still barking loudly. This is a big problem since we live in an apartment and being quiet is important. Technically we are not allowed dogs hear, but few tenants in the building has dogs that the building owner already knows about, but looks the other way since they are quiet. Racially, out of sight, out of mind. However, You can hear her across the building. When we are around her, she is totally quiet, but leave her alone and she is barking. Since I work form home I stay with her most of the time, but now I feel trapped in my own place because I can’t go out anywhere without this dog.
So the first problem is the separation anxiety.
The second problem is barking at strangers, especially babies. I pick her up and yell at her to stop but she doesn’t listen at times. She doesn’t bite. Just barks, but that could get me in trouble with my apartment if she scares a tenant that is a parent.
I used to use a soft collar to walk this dog but Owner 2 said use the choke collar he gave me to train her and she does respond to the choke collar. I tried more gentle approaches like praising her when she does things good, and treats but they work only like 20% of the time. I hate yelling (only when she does something REALLY BAD…not small things) and using the choke collar but I guess you have to be stern with this dog to establish discipline.
Last Problem is not that big of an issue, but while I’m hear, any tips on how to get your dog to poop and pee on my schedule? Right now I’m taking her for a walk every 2 hours to prevent accidents around the house. IDEALLY if I can teach this dog to bring me her collar when she needs to go out would be awesome.
Right now we put her in her cage at night, and I end up waking up at 5AM just to walk her, and go to sleep at 11:45PM for her last walk. It’s starting to burn me out.
I don’t want to get rid of this dog and have it have 4 owners in less than 2 months. I would love to keep this dog.
Any practical help would be greatly appreciated.
Oh and one more thing. I would love to do doggy daycare but with money being tight, I would like to do as much as I can from the apartment.
Last weekend we did bring up the dog to my wife’s family. I figured they have a large house with a large yard and that would be a good thing. I think the shock from going from seeing one or two people a day (like past owners), to about 10 people in a house (extended family lives in the same house), might have been overload for her. She got along with everybody the second day.We tried to leave her to go to WalMart for 30 minutes with all these people (Thinking she won’t be lonely). We get a call at WalMart saying" Come home! She is crying!".
#2 by Cherie on March 14, 2010 - 9:01 am
sounds like your doing a great job already mate! taking her out every 2 hours, wow that’s devotion!
Must be hard in an apartment!
Carry on with the treats! they will work in the end!
During the day leave in in another room away from you start for a couple of seconds then go to her! then go to a minute leave dog alone close door then go to him and give a treat then start with 2 mins, keep doing this till you get up to 10 minutes! still using treats!
She properly suffering with anxiety like you said! but remember she is probably testing you cos he thinks you are going to give him away to another owner like he is used to.
Also have you tried one of those bark collars? you can purchase them online!
or you could try clicker training!
If I was you i would just start from the beginning, as she was a puppy!
Bless him!
keep up the good job.xxxxxxxxxxxxx
References :
#3 by spotty on March 14, 2010 - 9:03 am
Ok, Well most of the time the dog will bark at strangers when you use a choke collar. It hurts her and doesn’t really teach her anything. Also, if she howls and barks when you are away you could always ask one of you neighbours to look after her when you are out.
I would (and this is only what I would do) get another dog, I know about the tennant not liking dogs in it but then she wouldn’t feel alone. As she was alone for a few month it will take her some getting used to but it would keep her compony.
References :
#4 by Lucy L on March 14, 2010 - 9:05 am
You have to be patient you can also try sending to a training or daycare it will learn lot many things in Montreal there is one where i take mine their website reference is
References :
http://aubergezen.com
in french
and
http://aubergezen.com/english/index.html in english
#5 by Tiffany on March 14, 2010 - 9:07 am
Have you heard of Ceasar Millan? He is sort of like a Dog Whisperer. You might be able to find some of his t.v. shows called the Dog Whisperer online somewhere. What you said about your dog reminds me alot of some of the episodes on his show. I went ahead and found some tips from him on separation anxiety. Copy and past the link below to read 5 of his tips on how to solve this problem.
http://www.cesarsway.com/tips/problembehaviors/5-tips-for-separation-anxiety
At that same site, you can click on a link at the top that says Ask Ceasar, and he will write back and answer your questions and concerns about your dog.
There should be places where he explains other problems dogs have, and Im pretty sure your questions can be answered just by searching that site and looking at problems other people have had with their dogs and see what they did to correct that behaviour.
References :
http://www.cesarsway.com/dogwhisperer
#6 by DogHelper on March 14, 2010 - 9:09 am
You can find a Miniature Pinscher guide book here, under the " M to S " section:
http://www.dogbreeds.ebookstogether.com/
References :